Converting original D&D and Mystara monsters

freyar said:

Looks good.

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Updating the Goatfolk Working Draft.

This creature looks like a mountain goat that walks as a man. Long shaggy hair covering its entire body apart from its slender, human-like arms. Its head sports an impressive pair of curled horns.

I can go for that description.

Goatfolk live in small clans, typically ruled by a strong matriarch or patriarch, controlling a particular valley or mountaintop. Clans often skirmish with each other, although they have been known to work together for a greater goal or in times fo trouble.

Goatfolk raise crops and a few herd animals, but they do so poorly and rely upon hunting and gathering. They are a plague on the environment due to their tendency to overhunt and their carelessness with horticulture, so they are forced to move often. When they resettle, they build their communities around defensible areas like caves.

From time to time, a small group of goatfolk will join civilization, looking for work and a steady source of food. Or just a place to cause mischief, which they find as often as not.

freyar said:

I can go for that description.

Click to expand...

Updating the Goatfolk Working Draft.

freyar said:

Goatfolk live in small clans, typically ruled by a strong matriarch or patriarch, controlling a particular valley or mountaintop. Clans often skirmish with each other, although they have been known to work together for a greater goal or in times fo trouble.

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That looks OK, but could do with some polishing.

freyar said:

Goatfolk raise crops and a few herd animals, but they do so poorly and rely upon hunting and gathering. They are a plague on the environment due to their tendency to overhunt and their carelessness with horticulture, so they are forced to move often. When they resettle, they build their communities around defensible areas like caves.

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The source says that Goatfolk facing deprivation sometimes form large raiding forces to attack their neighbors' farms and villages (presumably to steal food and supplies). We definitely have to include that!

freyar said:

From time to time, a small group of goatfolk will join civilization, looking for work and a steady source of food. Or just a place to cause mischief, which they find as often as not.

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We can probably trim this down a bit without losing anything significant.

How about...

Goatfolk live in small clans led a strong matriarch or patriarch. Each clan controls a particular valley or mountaintop, inhabiting caves or simple thatch-roofed stone huts. Goatfolk clans sometimes form alliances to pursue great prizes or survive times of trouble, but these seldom last long. Neighboring clans frequently feud with each other, which often results in weaker goatfolk clans leaving their territory before they are raided by a rival too powerful to face.

Goatfolk plant crops, hunt and forage to gain their food, with a few clans herding pigs and horses for meat. They are crude farmers and voracious hunters, whose overhunting and primitive agriculture often overloads their territory's ability to feed the goatfolk, forcing the clan to move on. When faced with starvation, clans of goatfolk may join together to form a large raiding force against their non-goatfolk neighbors, attacking lowland farms and villages to gain the food and supplies they need to feed their kin.

From time to time, goatfolk will join civilization, looking for work, a steady supply of food, or just a place to cause mischief. They most often find the latter.

Looks excellent!

freyar said:

Looks excellent!

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Updating the Goatfolk Working Draft.

I think we can do something with "Goatmen have a language with so many different dialects that many of them have trouble communicating with each other."

Change this:

Goatfolk speak common and their own language.

Into this?

Goatfolk speak Common and their own language, which has many dialects. Some goatfolk clans speak such different dialects they have difficulty understanding one another.

I'll agree to that. Are they then done? Ready for the next one?

freyar said:

I'll agree to that. Are they then done? Ready for the next one?

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I'm happy to move on, yes.

So which of the creatures in Goatmen of Kavaja do you fancy doing next?

Might as well go in order and do the goatlings, but it looks like we'll either have to replace SLAs or convert a number of spells.

Also, it's not clear to me we should post these to the CC, given that they're not really old-edition critters. But maybe Mortis could make them available to people at the Vaults of Pandius (with whatever permission is needed).

freyar said:

Might as well go in order and do the goatlings, but it looks like we'll either have to replace SLAs or convert a number of spells.

Also, it's not clear to me we should post these to the CC, given that they're not really old-edition critters. But maybe Mortis could make them available to people at the Vaults of Pandius (with whatever permission is needed).

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Yes, the "Goat Magic" will be a pain when we get around to that.

Okay, let's start with the basics.

I'm thinking the immortal "original Goatman" best match is an Outsider (Chaos, Extraplanar), suggesting their mortal descendants are Outsider (Chaos, Native).

We could make them Monstrous Humanoids instead, but they are not natural living creatures originally, but synthetic beings.

I'd rather make them Monstrous Humanoids, like the standard Goatfolk. Originally, they would have been extraplanar, but not any longer. I'm also not seeing the bit about being synthetic critters in the Goatmen of Kavaja document. Where is that?